One of the most exciting parts of tracking the motion-enabled market is discovering new uses and applications for the technology that are just completely unexpected. As motion sensing moves to become a ubiquitous part of many devices (PCs, phones, gaming consoles, toys , etc.) people are mashing up applications that have nothing to do with the original reasons the technology was embedded in a device.

A great example was highlighted in the Economist a week or two ago — a new distributed computing effort out of Stanford that leverages the hard drive protecting Sudden Motion Sensor accelerometers in laptops as part of a distributed earthquake tracking system.

Quake-Catcher Network is:

a collaborative initiative for developing the world’s largest, low-cost strong-motion seismic network by utilizing sensors in and attached to internet-connected computers.

With your help, the Quake-Catcher Network can provide better understanding of earthquakes, give early warning to schools, emergency response systems, and others. The Quake-Catcher Network also provides educational software designed to help teach about earthquakes and earthquake hazards

There are PC and Mac clients (as well as a desktop client designed for use with USB accelerometer dongles — mainly designed for science classrooms). There’s a lot of variability to account for (locations can’t be precisely determined without GPS, laptops shake when they’re typed upon and are often moved or placed on non-level/stead surfaces like, well, laps), but the system is designed with algorithms which will filter out these factors and provide a new set of data for tracking earthquakes.

We think this is a really cool app, but, more importantly, it makes us wonder — what’s next? There are literally millions of laptops out there with Sudden Motion Sensors — and now there are millions (and potentially billions) of mobile phones with accelerometers that can be combined with precise GPS and network-based location information and persistent 3G network connections. There are probably a lot of “next big things” just waiting to appear. Have some ideas? Let us know!